


ordinary happiness

by intertwiningsouls



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 19:57:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16024898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwiningsouls/pseuds/intertwiningsouls
Summary: there's nothing special about this rainy saturday.





	ordinary happiness

Adam rubbed his eyes and let his attention fall away from the computer screen for what felt like the hundredth time in ten minutes. His and Ronan’s weekend plans had been ruined by the appearance of a persistent early fall rain, so he had sat down at the table with his work computer and Ronan had sprawled out on the couch with a book.

It had been a slow, relaxing morning. They had slept in later than usual and, for once, Ronan had played situationally appropriate music while they cooked breakfast in their cozy farmhouse kitchen with their several dogs playing underfoot. The day felt like it had been cut loose from the pressing need to follow a schedule, to check things off a to-do list, and it was a nice change of pace, but still... Adam couldn't quite shake the need to do something useful.

So he had spent the last hour growing increasingly frustrated with the poorly designed business software he was forced to use on occasion; the latest updates only serving to point out all the ways in which the developers had failed to consider basic things like common sense or efficiency. The worst part was that, even though he knew it was the software itself that was lacking, interacting with it made him feel clumsy and stupid.

At one point, Ronan had interrupted his grumbling to ask if he was okay, and Adam had sighed, blaming his bad mood on the software and a headache. A few minutes later, Ronan had quietly extracted himself from the room and gone upstairs to read in bed.

Adam knew Ronan had only left the room so he wouldn’t soak up Adam’s bad mood, return it, and spiral their whole afternoon into a shitty mood disaster, like they tended to do if they weren’t careful, but somehow that soured his mood even further. His head hurt and he wanted someone to hold him, but instead of giving into that part of his brain, he’d stuck himself in front of a screen that hurt his eyes so he could curse miserably under his breath in the name of productivity. He was annoyed with himself even as he continued to make himself sit there and work. Eventually, he set his jaw and decided to stop letting his pissy mood distract him with false breaks where he'd stare uselessly out the window and mope. He was determined to hurry up and finish this last segment of work so he could finally get to a good stopping point and actually take a real fucking break.

Fifteen minutes later, he shut his laptop with a sigh, relieved to have something checked off his to-do list, relieved to be done with the glare of the screen, but annoyed that he had let it take so much out of him. He had slept in this morning, yet somehow he was exhausted.

He trudged up the stairs to see how Ronan’s day was going and found him propped up on their bed, watching animal videos on his phone.

Ronan’s efforts to avoid catching Adam’s bad mood were clearly paying off. Seeing him grinning easily at his phone softened something in Adam and he let himself fall down on the bed with another sigh.

“Hey.” He nudged himself into Ronan’s side until he felt an arm wrap around his shoulders, pulling him close. For a few moments, he laid in silence with his head on Ronan’s chest, just breathing.

“I’m done being grumpy with annoying work for the day, if you want to come back downstairs.”

“Okay.”

Neither one of them moved to go back downstairs.

The lazy rhythm of Ronan’s heartbeat under Adam’s ear tricked his breathing into following a slower pattern and the tension of the last hour began to slip away. “How the hell is your heart beating so slow?” he muttered into Ronan’s shirt. He smelled vaguely of sweat, and that was somehow another signal to Adam’s brain that he was safe and comfortable here.

Ronan checked his pulse and hummed. “That _is_ pretty slow.” He sounded impressed. After a beat of silence, he asked, “Still have a headache?”

Adam nodded on his chest.

Ronan’s hand came up to rest at his temple, his thumb massaging lazy circles back into Adam’s hairline. He was still scrolling through his phone with his other hand, talking quietly about the highland cattle he’d been reading about earlier. Rain was still falling steadily outside. Adam felt himself slipping closer and closer to true relaxation.

When he felt the soft press of a kiss on his forehead, he realized he’d drifted off to sleep.

Ronan murmured, “I’m going to go grab lunch. Do you need to take a nap?” He was leaning over Adam, looking down at him with a knowing smile. The look of intense fondness on his face made it hard for Adam to gather his thoughts into a coherent denial. He wanted to say, _No, I’ll get up and help cook. No, I need to wash my clothes for tomorrow. No, I slept in today, I can’t take a nap, it’ll waste the whole day._ He said, “Mmph.”

Ronan’s lips twitched with the promise of a laugh. He leaned forward to press another kiss to Adam’s forehead and pulled the blankets up around his shoulders. Quietly, he asked, “Do you want the air conditioner on so you don’t get overheated?”

Adam still wanted to protest, but he _was_ on the edge of sleep and this felt like explicit permission to close his eyes and let his weariness take over. He said, “Mmph.”

Ronan was already standing by the window air conditioner, turning dials and adjusting the fans. “Do you want me to let the dog in for cuddles?”

“...Mmph.”

Adam heard the bedroom door open and felt the mattress shift under the weight of their endlessly clingy dog as it jumped up and flopped down next to him with an overly satisfied sigh.

Adam forced one eye open and turned to look at Ronan standing in the doorway.

“Goodnight,” Ronan grinned.

Adam would have rolled his eyes but they were already falling shut again. He said, “Mmph.”

Ronan’s soft laughter retreated behind the closing bedroom door, and Adam listened as he padded down the stairs.

The dog was already asleep beside him. The room was dark under the cover of rain clouds. He breathed in and out, in and out.

 

__________

 

He was somewhere between awake and _if I closed my eyes again I could sleep for another hour_ when the bedroom door creaked open. Another one of their dogs scampered across the floor, jumping onto the bed and finding Adam’s face, smothering him with over-eager kisses. He heard Ronan hissing the dog’s name. He waved him off, letting him know it was fine; he was already awake.

Ronan shooed the dogs away to make room for himself on the bed and settled back in next to Adam. “Was that a good nap? You slept for an hour and a half.” He sounded pleased.

Adam nodded into his pillow and muttered, “I know, I’m proud of myself.”

Ronan leaned over him. “Hm?”

Adam tried again. “I’m proud of myself.”

Ronan laughed. “What?”

Adam rolled over, curling into Ronan’s side, and focused on speaking coherently. “It was good. I needed that.”

Ronan pulled him close and said, “I thought so.”

Adam felt as if he could melt into Ronan and stay there forever. Ronan looked as though he wouldn’t mind. He wore a soft smile and with every blink his eyelids grew heavier and heavier. His breathing was evening out to match Adam’s.

Adam’s stomach growled. He’d missed lunch by nearly two hours, and that only served to remind him of all the other things he should have been doing that afternoon instead of sleeping. Impatient to-do lists began to unscroll somewhere in the back of his mind.

He shifted against Ronan. “Hey, I’m going to go get food. Is it your turn for a nap now?”

Ronan made a sound that meant _yes_ , but when Adam pushed himself up to leave, he found himself being pulled back down for a warm, unhurried kiss.

Adam's growing urgency to get out of bed dissolved under Ronan's strong hands rubbing circles up and down his back. With each lingering kiss they melted deeper into each other, communicating only with the soft press of lips and murmured sounds of contentment. It meant what it always meant.  _I love you, I love you, I love you._  

This was all Adam needed right now. The rest of the day could wait.

**Author's Note:**

> adam and i have a few things in common. we both grew up thinking we would never understand or experience love the right way thanks to our parents not passing the whole "love" thing along. we both struggle to remind ourselves that we are valuable even when we are not working or producing results. even on lazy days, we both feel that nagging need to _do something useful,_ to prove something.
> 
> we have something else in common: we both found someone who weathers our rough edges and reminds us that it's okay to just _exist and be happy_ sometimes. we both found someone who makes steady, safe, comfortable love feel like a natural part of every single day.
> 
> i guess that's what this little fic is about. (also, i wrote it instead of eating dinner and it isn't edited, so. thanks for reading it anyway!)
> 
> <3


End file.
